


When to Bluster, When to Hush

by learningthetrees



Category: Slow West (2015)
Genre: Canon Continuation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-14
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-08-08 01:31:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 16,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7738012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/learningthetrees/pseuds/learningthetrees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the three months since he arrived, they've barely spoken to each other. But when Silas is gravely injured, Rose comes to his aid, wondering why he's stayed so long — and why she's so glad he has.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this fic grew out of several requests on Tumblr. I decided to set it in a separate universe from _Ho! for the West_ to give myself more freedom.  
>  As always, feel free to come talk to me at [ask-learningthetrees.tumblr.com](http://www.ask-learningthetrees.tumblr.com)!  
> 

**Rose**

Rose awoke before the sun was in the sky. It was a habit she’d begun when they first arrived in America, and it was one thing she couldn’t let go of. The day sprawled out before her, vast as the landscape, and the sooner she faced it, the better. The sooner she put her feet on the floor and brushed the nightmares of the previous night from her memory, the better.

She stood at the door, drying the inside of the last bit of crockery with the corner of her apron. Across the still-dark field, she could see the broad figure of the man she’d come to know over the last few months. Silas Selleck straightened up, rubbing the back of his neck as he surveyed the land. For what was not the first time, Rose found herself wondering what he was thinking. He said little, and what he did say was guarded and gruff. But Rose knew she herself was just as guarded. She had to be.

A peek at the two orphans in her care told Rose they were asleep — as they should be. It was still dark outside, after all. The world they inhabited in their dreams had to be better than the one outside the door. Rose hoped it was, for their sakes.

Back outside, Silas was nowhere to be seen. Rose hefted the empty water jug against her hip as she strode through the field. Mist was seeping up from the ground, swirling around her ankles as she went. She filled the jug at the well, and was about to turn back toward the cabin when there was the snap of a twig cracking.

Rose spun on her heel, and the jug tumbled from her hands, hitting the ground and shattering. Standing in front of her was Silas, his hands raised and his eyes wide, penitent. A breath escaped Rose’s lips in a huff.

“Sorry,” said Silas.

“What are you doing?” she asked, glancing around.

“Just patrolling.” He sighed and rubbed his neck again. He did that often. “Didn’t mean to frighten you.”

Rose shook her head. “It’s all right.” She knelt to gather the broken ceramic, and beside her, she felt Silas kneel down too. He reached out and proffered several pieces of broken jug. She dropped them into her apron pocket, considering whether there was another jug inside that was big enough. They needed water, and it had been the easiest thing to carry. How would she be able to get another? She couldn’t imagine going into town after everything that had happened, and trading with strangers was unthinkable —

Rose looked up to see Silas’s hand, empty, still waiting in front of her. She breathed in and then took hold of his hand as she stood. “Thank you.” Her words were a mutter, and she quickly withdrew her hand from his. And with that, he was turning and heading off toward the perimeter of the field.

Patrolling again.

Rose wished she could say his vigilance was displaced, but she knew that wasn’t true. It took everything in her not to walk the land day and night herself, because it was all she felt she could do. Nothing she did — whether she was cooking or sowing crops or nailing wooden beams across the windows — could abate the buzzing unease in her heart, the anticipation that something was on the horizon.

It hadn’t always been this way. When she and her father had first arrived, the world had been a blur of settling in and learning the new world around her. Always in the back of her mind had been the tiny fear that someone would uncover the past they’d buried in Scotland, but never had it consumed her like this. Never had her sleeping and waking hours alike been hounded by the possibility that someone might come for her again, guns blazing. And today, more than ever, Rose couldn’t shake the feeling from within her very bones.

It had been three months since everything had happened. Three months, and the crops had started to grow again, the heat of the sun growing warmer each day across the plain, and her father was still dead. Some days, Rose swore it was only three days ago that the bounty hunters had descended upon the homestead. Others, it felt more like three years.

The epiphany of Silas had been unexpected. He’d wandered into the house just after Jay had died, and they shared their grief silently. That first night, neither of them slept — Silas standing guard outside the front door, Rose sitting up inside, clutching a shotgun on her lap. They did not speak those first few days. Rose thought perhaps, if they didn’t address it, it wouldn’t have happened. Perhaps she would awaken and find it was all a dream.

But Silas was always there. Each morning, Rose opened the door to find him sitting on the porch, pistol in hand, cigar between his teeth. And each morning, Rose was surprised to find that she was relieved to see him. Whenever she surveyed Silas, Rose could tell life had not been kind to him. His cheeks were chapped, the back of his neck sunburnt, his wounds from the gunfight leaving his limbs stiff. He had all the reason in the world to leave this place and the memories it held, and yet he stayed.

He would be gone one day, Rose was sure of it, but not today.

Back inside, Rose hunted for another jar or bucket — something to hold the day’s water. She found a basin that would have to do and made several trips back and forth to the well until she’d fetched enough. By then, the sky was alight with golden streaks of daylight, and the orphans were awake, making sleepy sounds and watching Rose with wide, expectant blue eyes. Caring for children was new to her, but she managed. All they really needed was food, attention, and devotion. She could provide that. As she worked at taking inventory in the larder, her gaze darted back and forth to the children at the table as they entertained themselves, chattering to each other in their native language.

Every so often, a movement would catch Rose’s attention through the open door, but it was only ever Silas, walking back and forth across the property, checking the progress of the crops, assessing the condition of his weapons. Not once did he come inside, even when the sun had reached its peak in the sky and the sweltering heat had even Rose pushing the sweaty hair from her face.

Sometimes, Rose wished he would come inside.

But before she could invite him, the children needed tending to again. She served them dinner, and then supper, and then she tucked them into bed just when swaths of orange and purple were tinging the wide western sky. Then she set to work baking or canning or trying — and failing once more — to make butter. By the time night had fallen, she heard the sound of Silas’s boots on the front porch. He did not come in.

Rose crossed to the closed door and stood, imagining him settling himself down against the railing for another sleepless night spent staring into the vast darkness. She reached out and laid her palm on the wood of the door. There was silence. It was almost as if she was alone. Eventually, Rose retreated from the door, blew out the candle, and sat down on the bed. The aching anxiety in the pit of her stomach only grew stronger in the dark.

Tomorrow was another day.


	2. Chapter 2

**Silas**

_I’ll protect Rose or die trying._

_That’s what I’m afraid of._

_Lay a finger on her, and I’ll kill you._

He still heard these words clear as day. The last things he and Jay had said to each other. It made sense — Jay said he would die trying, and he did. In some ways, Silas saw it as the only possible outcome.

In other ways, Silas knew it was his fault.

He knew the west; he knew there was always someone waiting just ahead, men who would kill without a second thought, without losing a minute of sleep. He also knew Jay was far too idealistic for his own good. He knew Jay would come after him, tied to a tree or not. The west was no place for a person like Jay.

Silas knew all these things. That made it his fault that Jay was dead.

Silas shook his head. He was thinking too much. Things were better if he just didn’t think about it. If he could just get himself to stop thinking.

_Stop._

He pulled the cigar from his mouth and rubbed a hand down his face, scratching against a few days’ worth of thick stubble. It was nearly midday — time passed differently now. Quickly and yet dragging on and on. He had been here months, and yet he had only been here a few moments.

A trickle of blood running down from Jay’s mouth.

The boy’s face, ashen. Eyes dark.

_No._

Silas shook his head again and stood up from his perch on the front porch. It was a clear day, without a cloud in sight. Cicadas buzzed from the forest, but otherwise, the plain was silent. Silas knew better than to think silence meant safety. The best bounty hunters, after all, could appear in silence.

He would know; he’d done it. That part of his life seemed ages ago — the days when he lived only for himself. Season after season of riding across the territory, tearing down posters with tempting rewards and tracking pursuits through the wilderness. Wanted dead or alive. It wasn’t long before he learned what that really meant.

 _Dead or dead, kid_.

The first time he killed a man for a bounty, Silas felt a part of him shrink. Some part deep inside, no longer in use, got smaller and smaller each time until he’d forgotten it had existed. It was only once something had started to stir again — when Jay’s simple, optimistic words had wormed themselves deep inside of his head — that Silas remembered what it felt like. To feel.

It was too inconvenient, too difficult. Feeling meant caring. Caring meant riding straight into a gun fight, banging on the door, facing two bullets. All because some kid had made him care. Silas had given up asking why a long time ago; things happened that didn’t make sense all the time. It was no use trying to reason. But still, he couldn’t shake that nagging curiosity always in the back of his mind, that itch of a question. He’d come all this way. He was still here.

_Why?_

Silas chomped down on his cigar again. There were things needed done, after all, and the homestead couldn’t go on with him feeling sorry for a dead boy all day. He stood still for a moment, one hand shading his face as he surveyed the property.

All was quiet. But he knew it wouldn’t always be that way.

Maybe he and Jay had led Payne right to the Rosses, but the bastard who shot him had been there first — another bounty hunter, although Silas hadn’t recognized him when they’d crossed paths at the trading post. It wasn’t exactly a lucrative trade, hunting bounty, but it provided enough to eat from day to day. And more than that, it gave dangerous, bloodthirsty men an excuse to ravage and kill, all under the guise of law enforcement. Silas always had to stifle the urge to chuckle whenever he overheard another bounty hunter invoking the name of the U.S. government upon seizing a bounty. Silas knew as well as they did that the lot of them were nothing more than glorified outlaws. It was a label he didn’t use to mind, but now, the thought of the scum of the earth descending upon the peaceful house for $2,000 made his stomach turn.

There was that itching question again. _Why?_

 _Enough._ Silas retrieved his hat and set off past the bald patch that had once been the wheat field. Just beyond the emptiness stood a pile of logs, the smallest of them still the size of his thigh. Silas sighed and stretched out his arms, flexing his muscles from his shoulders down to his wrists. Then he bent to grasp the handle of the axe that lay at his feet and heaved it up into the air over his shoulder. He brought it down swiftly, lodging it in the center of the first of the logs.

It took only a few turns of this for a sweat to break out across his brow and trickle down his back. Silas paused only to look up at the progress of the sun in the sky. It was already beginning its arc down toward the horizon.

Time passed differently now.

There was the sound of a bang from behind him, and Silas couldn’t stop his muscles from tensing and his gut from twisting. He turned to see the front door of the little house standing open, two figures on the threshold. Just as quickly as he saw them, Silas looked away, averting his eyes back to his work.

He hadn’t spoken a word to the Swedish orphans, avoiding even looking at them for too long. He didn’t know how much they remembered, but he knew his face would be a certain reminder of what had happened. Of the death of their parents, of his apparent coldness. Of leaving them behind.

_We could have taken them in._

Dammit, there was Jay’s voice in his head again. Silas raised the axe and brought it down heavily, cleaving the log in two. He kicked the split log out of the way, bringing the axe down again on the next waiting piece of wood. Again and again he did this, renewed by the urgency to get that kid out of his mind.

But still, Silas felt that prickle on the back of his neck that told him he wasn't alone. A peek over his shoulder told him the children had since vanished back into the house. He was about to shrug off the feeling and return to his work when he noticed another figure, this one sitting on the porch step, nearly folded up onto itself. Rose, hugging her knees to her chest, chin pointed down, her dark hair blowing loose and obscuring her face.

Silas set down the axe and leaned against the handle. The Rose he glimpsed each day as she went about her chores was sturdy, efficient, hardy, strong. Her face was steely and her pace brisk, and she never sat idle. But this Rose was different. She was still and weary — this was sadness.

There was a not-unfamiliar ache in the center of Silas’s chest, and from somewhere deep inside, he recognized it. He’d felt it before when he’d first seen Rose’s countenance gazing up at him from the wanted poster, and again when she’d first glared at him through the hole in the window of the cabin.

He wanted to do something. He wanted to help.


	3. Chapter 3

**Rose**

A great storm blew in overnight — one that rattled the planks of the cabin with winds that yelped and howled and sheets of rain that lashed against the roof. At first, Silas remained outside at his post, but when a few cracks of thunder had boomed through the plain and flashes of lightning peeked through the cracks of the walls, he silently retreated inside, sitting down at the spindly chair in the corner. A few leaks sprang up, under which Rose promptly set a bowl. The rain seemed to go on for hours, loud enough that, even if they were to speak to each other, they would not be able to hear a word.

Finally, the thunder ceased and the winds died down and the rain slowed until it was nothing more than a steady drip on the roof. From where she sat up at the table, Rose felt her eyes drift shut.

When she opened them, it was light. There was a misty yellow haze hanging over the cabin, and it was only once Rose felt a humid breeze rustle against her skin that she realized the door was open. She rose and went to the doorway.

Silas stood just outside on the porch, arms crossed, eyes fixed on a point somewhere in the distance. The rain had pummeled the fledgling corn she’d been tending flat to the ground, and the wind had torn apart the chicken coop he’d just finished constructing earlier that week. As she took in the carnage, Rose could not help but feel personally thwarted by nature’s vengeance. As if they had not already been through enough.

“It’s not fair,” she thought, only to realize she’d spoken the words aloud.

Beside her, Silas sighed, the first sound she’d heard him make since the day before. “Few things are,” he said. “Best get started.” There was not a trace of bitterness in his voice. Rose wished he showed the same vexation she felt, but his face betrayed no signs of anger. He started down from the porch and she followed, crossing the muddy field on his heels.

When they reached the ruins of the coop, Silas knelt, salvaging pieces of wood that were not broken too badly. When his hands were full, Rose reached out to take the lumber from him. He deposited the heavy load in her arms, and she carried it away from the muddy mess. She returned to find Silas staring at the conglomeration of wire, nails, and split boards, rubbing his chin.

“We should remove the wire,” Rose said, pointing to the bent and torn chicken wire. Silas nodded and took one end of the sheet of wire. Rose took the other, and wordlessly, they tore it from its mooring. Together, they took a few steps away and then discarded it.

They did not need to speak, did not even need to look at each other, to know what they had to do next. They returned to the pile of discarded wood and knelt. Rose picked up one end of a piece of the roof and tried lifting it, but it was heavier than she’d expected. Silas took hold of the other end, and they were able to set it aside.

And so on and so on, they cleared the rubble of Silas’s hard work until there was no indication there’d once been a structure there. A stack of usable lumber stood on the grass next to a pile of splintered and destroyed wood. The two of them stood in front of their handiwork for a moment, side by side. The sun peeked from behind the residual storm clouds, strong already. Rose shaded her face with her hand.

“How long did it take you?” Rose asked, gesturing to the building materials.

“Doesn’t matter,” Silas grunted.

Rose turned to face him. “Yes, it does.”

Silas rubbed the back of his neck and closed his eyes. “Two days.”

Rose bit her lip. Two days of labor was enough to expend once, but to have to do it again was all but unthinkable. She glanced over her shoulder at the cabin. All was still and silent. Looking back at Silas, her jaw set in determination, she asked, “Where do we start?”

He shook his head, just a nudge from side to side. “You don’t have to —”

“But I am.” She held his gaze, noticing for the first time the youthfulness behind his eyes. Judging just by his eyes, he may have been a boy of twenty, closer to Rose’s age and with a life of fresh experiences awaiting him. After a moment, he looked away.

“Fine,” he grunted. “We’ll need a hammer and nails.”

And so they proceeded to rebuild what the west had destroyed. Rose handed Silas nails as he hammered the frame of the coop into place, and then he held out the hammer for her. She nailed a few slats in place, a structure starting to form. At first, Silas watched her progress closely, but once he was satisfied that she could manage, he set to work untangling the wire.

“You’ve done this before,” he said after a long silence. Rose stayed her hammer and glanced up at him, but he was preoccupied with his task, eyes on the bundle of chicken wire in his lap.

“Several times,” she said. “We had three coops and worse storms than this back home.”

Just saying that last word brought a lump to Rose’s throat, and she bit her lip, lifting the hammer again and driving it against a nail that was already secure. Out of the corner of her eye, she could tell Silas had paused in his work, and she thought perhaps he would try to offer meaningless words of comfort, but then the moment passed.

“Worse than this?” he said.

Rose swallowed, pushing thoughts of the past from her mind. “Yes,” was all she said.

“Good,” he said. “Maybe you know how to keep it from falling again.” When she looked up at him again, Rose could have sworn there was the shadow of a grin on his face.

“I hope so.”

Then they were quiet again, and the only sound was the peal of hammer against nail and the rustling of chicken wire.

When all that was needed was the roof, Silas stood and joined her, and together, they took turns pounding nails through the wooden slats they used as shingles. Rose wiped her brow, feeling the sweat bead against her hairline and down the back of her neck. She only allowed herself a few moments of respite, rushing back over when she saw Silas attempting to secure a long beam on his own.

“Careful,” she admonished, straightening it out.

“No need to worry about me.” He tapped the nail with the hammer three times in quick succession, a staccato echo ringing out across the plain.

“I will,” she protested. “No chicken coop is worth you knocking yourself out.”

Silas grunted, and Rose couldn’t tell whether it was out of humor or disagreement. “Where will you get the chickens?”

Rose recalled her father’s plan to travel, seeking out other farms and homesteads to trade with. He’d had a future in mind, a life planned out for both of them. “I don’t know,” she said finally. Silas seemed to realize what his question had reminded her of, so he did not press.

There was a comradery that emerged from sharing manual labor. The words they exchanged had only to do with the work in front of them, but it felt more than once as though they shared the same mind. One need only point, and the other knew what needed done next. Silas perched on the half-formed roof of the structure while Rose lifted as many beams up to him as she could, bracing them against her shoulder. They shared the load, shared the heat, shared the work.

Silas was becoming less of a stranger to Rose. She was starting to understand him more — deciphering his grunts, reading the slope of his shoulders to know whether he was in pain, knowing that his far-off gaze meant he was remembering what had brought him here. The more he worked alongside her, the more she felt she knew him. She trusted him — that he wouldn’t let a heavy piece of lumber fall on her, that he would hold the wood steady while she nailed it in place, that he would protect her.

And that thought struck Rose deep into her gut, tearing at her insides. She wanted him to stay. After just this short time, she had grown accustomed to him. For some reason, when she knew he was nearby, the fear inside abated slightly.

Rose stepped away to check on the children, returning with tin cups of water for herself and Silas. He took his without a word, but his eyes met hers, unguarded and grateful. Rose tried not to imagine how it would feel if he was suddenly gone.

They finally stood back to admire the chicken coop. Some of the wood was warped, the roof somewhat crooked, but Rose thought it looked perfect. They each took long draughts from their cups, savoring for a moment the coolness and the freedom of being finished.

“Are you hungry?” she asked. Silas bobbed his head in a nod, and the two of them turned and started toward the house. At the tip of Rose’s tongue was the question she didn’t want to know the answer to: When would he leave?

Unbidden, words poured out. “Why did you stay here?” she asked instead.

A few steps ahead of her, Silas paused. For a silent moment, she stared at his back, willing him to say something, anything. Finally, he looked over his shoulder at her. “Jay,” he said simply. “I owe him.”

 _Of course._ Rose tried to stave off the disappointment in his answer. He did not know her and she meant nothing to him. He was only doing what he thought he must to atone for Jay’s death. _It is nothing to do with me_ , she thought as Silas continued ahead of her.


	4. Chapter 4

**Silas**

It would be dark soon. Under the cover of the dense thicket, it was already close to dusk, with just a few rays of golden light slanting between the branches. Silas knew he should head back soon, but he wanted to finish this one last patrol of the night.

_And then what?_

It was in his nature to leave, to drift. He never remained in one place very long, even when he was young. There was never anything to keep him — never a sense of home or belonging — and there was always something new, another adventure waiting. Leaving one country for another, one town for another, one journey, one gang. Always onward.

Until now.

Silas forged further into the underbrush, each step methodical, scanning the darkening distance. He took a deep breath, the warm summer air fragrant with pine, as he turned to survey his surroundings. His left leg was still stiff and difficult to maneuver, especially as the day wore on. He tried to move slowly and disguise the limp in his step, but he knew it was no use. It was clear — to himself, and probably to Rose as well — that simply moving was harder for him than it ever had been before.

At long last, the west had finally caught up with him. His unabashed, reckless journeys as a young man had continued into his adulthood, and he’d managed to escape each one by nothing but the skin of his teeth. Payne had been surprised that Silas was still in one piece, and truthfully, so was Silas. It was only so long that someone could live like this, on the fringes of the world, associating with the scum of the earth and working as a glorified killer, until someone put a bullet in them. Or two.

Silas felt a strange inkling in the back of his mind, an inclination to stay where he was. _Stay_. Completely unlike anything he’d ever wanted to do before. Not the forest, but Colorado territory. The little cabin. Rose. _Stay_.

He felt the presence behind him before he heard it. There was a subtle shift in the air itself, and then the crunch of underbrush, and Silas had already drawn and cocked his pistol by the time he’d turned around. Darkness was falling swiftly now, a blueish haze settling over the forest, but even in the half-light, Silas could still make out the figure. Broad shouldered, with shaggy dark hair and a wide, bushy mustache. A pistol in one hand, a hunting knife in the other.

“Silas Selleck,” the man said, his voice dripping with a familiar drawl. “As I live and breathe.”

Silas set his jaw. “Jules.”

 _Click_. Jules cocked his pistol, aimed at Silas’s middle. “Thought I might find you out here.”

“Did you?” Silas made to take a step to the side, but Jules waved his pistol.

“Ah ah ah,” he said, with the air of a parent scolding a child. “Not so fast.”

Silas remained where he was, his own pistol level with Jules’s forehead. It had been years since Silas had crossed paths with Julius Frye, known to the world as Jules, but even so, he hadn’t changed a bit. Even his worn, leather-fringed jacket looked the same as always, albeit a little dirtier. Jules was one of those men who seemed to be attracted to unsavory situations. Wherever there was trouble, Jules was not far behind. Anyone who tried to come between Jules and a bounty would soon regret it.

And he never brought in a bounty alive.

“Been asking around about you,” said Jules. He spoke with ease, his tone jocular despite the gun pointed at him. He might have been talking to an old friend, but Silas would never consider him that. Jules did not have friends — and neither did Silas, come to think of it. “Not much bounty to be had out here,” Jules continued. He chomped down on the knife between his teeth and reached into his jacket with his free hand. Jules brandished a tattered page in front of him, and Silas knew what it was without even needing to look at it. But he reached out and took it anyway: Rose’s wanted poster.

When Silas first laid eyes on Rose, he was transfixed. The artist who had penned the poster missed certain aspects of Rose’s likeness — the shape of her jaw, the tilt of her eyebrows, the flow of her hair — but her eyes had been wholly captured. Looking into her eyes that first time, it felt to Silas as though he’d known Rose for years — that every time he’d glanced down at the poster, he was somehow learning her.

Silas tore his eyes from the poster and looked back up at Jules, raising an eyebrow. “What’s this?”

Jules removed the knife from his mouth, gripping it in a meaty hand, and chuckled. “Don’t play dumb with me, Silas,” he said. “Never were very good at that.”

Silas held the man’s gaze, neither of them blinking nor flinching. Jules’s eyes were guarded and unreadable, and Silas couldn’t tell whether he believed him. They stayed like that for several long moments. Someone like Payne would have given up long ago.

But Jules was not Payne.

“I know you know where they are,” Jules said. “But I don’t need you to tell me.” Silas felt his heart quicken as Jules raised the knife and pointed beyond them — toward the direction of the Ross house.

Jules’s lips parted to reveal what was left of a yellowing smile. “So I _am_ right. You staking out the place same as me?” Silas gritted his teeth, silent. He felt that same urge again, but this time it was telling him he needed to act. _Do something. Now_. “You thinking about taking them in alive?” Jules let out a hearty bellow. “When will you realize, Silas? That’s just not how it’s done.” _No_. “You kill ’em first. Make ’em bleed. Make sure they’re not coming back.” Jules lifted an eyebrow. “Dead or dead.” _Not them_. All Silas could see was Jay’s face, blood running from his lips, the light gone from his eyes. And then he saw the orphans’ lifeless bodies, and Rose —

Rose. Silas recalled the moment he’d seen her sitting on the porch steps, her shoulders drooping and her face downturned. All he’d wanted to do then was make it right. And now there was someone standing in front of him, wanting nothing more than to hurt her. To kill her.

Jules laughed again at Silas’s silence. “Cat got your tongue, Selleck? There’s nothing —”

_Enough._

Silas squeezed the trigger. At the sound, Jules leapt out of the way, the bullet grazing his left bicep. As he fell to the ground, Jules got off a shot of his own, but it went wide, missing Silas and sailing into the tree line. Silas ducked behind a thick pine trunk, peering around it after a moment. It was fully dark now, the only illumination the dim moonlight that filtered through the leaves, but Silas could still see the shape of Jules’s body prone on the ground. He was shaking, but it only took a few moments for Silas to realize he was laughing again.

“You _shot_ me?” Jules’s voice echoed through the woods. “That’s rich, Silas Selleck.” Then he coughed a few times, a dry, rattling sound deep in his chest.

Jules was still and silent for a moment, and there was nothing but the low chirp of crickets filling the forest. Silas moved around the tree, taking a few cautious steps towards the man on the ground. When Jules made no movements, Silas darted closer, kicking the pistol from his reach.

Silas looked down on the man below him. He could just make out a pool of black blood beneath Jules’s arm. Silas raised his gun, aiming it between the bounty hunter’s eyes. “You think shooting me is going to change anything?” Jules said.

“It might,” Silas said. But before he could pull the trigger again and end this, a white-hot pain erupted in his leg — the left one, just below his angry gunshot wound. An unbidden cry escaped Silas’s lips as he fell to his knees. He looked down to see Jules’s hunting knife protruding from his calf, buried nearly to the hilt in his flesh.

Another explosion of pain, this one in his head, as a sturdy fist collided with his cheek. Silas reeled, landing on his back. He was pinned down, struggling against Jules’s knees on his shoulders. Using his good arm, Jules landed one blow across his face only to strike him again on the other side. “Think you can shoot me?” He grunted between hits. “Cocky bastard.” Silas fought to see through the blood, tasting it, sweet and acrid, as it dripped into his mouth. The assault on his head halted, only for Jules to land a hard hit to his side. All Silas could do was suck in a shallow breath, a high-pitched wheeze emitting from his mouth. His lungs felt as though they were filling with hot water.

Jules, still pinning him against the ground, paused, grinning down at Silas as he struggled to breathe. Jules let out a few condescending _tuts_ , brushing the back of his hand against Silas’s cheek. “Not so sure of yourself now, are you?” Jules said in a soft voice. “I’m going to watch you die here,” he said, leaning closer until his putrid breath wafted over Silas’s face. “And then I’m going to kill the girl and her father. And they’re going to get me $2,000.”

Silas spluttered, blood bubbling from his lips.

Jules leaned his ear toward Silas’s mouth. “What’s that?”

Silas drew a sharp breath, sending an agonizing shock through his chest. “No — you won’t.”

Before Jules could speak or move or even laugh, Silas gripped the shaft of the hunting knife lodged in his leg and wrenched it free. In one swift motion, Silas brought the blade down into Jules’s neck.

At first, nothing happened. Then, Jules’s face went pale, his eyes widening as he realized what Silas had done. A thin line of blood, and then another, and then another began to stream down his neck, until the front of his shirt was bathed in blood. Silas watched as Jules tipped over, landing in the dust beside him.

The man did not move, but neither did Silas. He stared upward, his mouth gaping wide as he battled just to breathe. The sky was a deep, dark blue, edged in by waving pine boughs. There may have been stars, but Silas’s vision darkened and his eyelids drooped until he saw nothing.


	5. Chapter 5

**Rose**

She threw another log on the fire, and it hissed and crackled, sending sparks flying. An ember landed on the floorboards, and Rose stamped it out. A thin finger of smoke rose up into the air.

Leaving the warmth of the stove, Rose walked to the door and peered out yet again. The dark hung thick and heavy across the plain — Rose almost thought she could reach out and touch it. Cicadas hummed and frogs croaked from within the cover of darkness, and for a moment, Rose felt safe and nestled in the blanket of night.

Then the crack of a gunshot tore Rose from her brief shelter, her heart immediately jumping into her throat.

_Silas._

Without thinking, Rose whirled around and took up the pistol that sat on the table. She spotted the lit taper candle in the center of the table and grabbed it too, heading out into the darkness.

It was impossible to tell from which direction the shot had come. Once Rose had taken a few forceful strides from the porch, she stopped, eyes straining against the dark and ears alert for any sound that would indicate where the trouble was. She heard noises from all around her — creatures of the night, insects, one or two hoots from an unseen owl — but nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing that told her anything new.

She proceeded toward the forest, hoping whatever it was would make itself known. She brandished the candle in front of her, gripping the waxy surface while she held the pistol at her side. A prayer surfaced in her mind, repeated over and over.

 _Please God, let him be all right. Please, God. Please_.

And then there was a cry that shattered the silence — an anguished shout of pain — and Rose’s worst fear was all at once too real. She adjusted her course and dashed forward through the tree line, the prayer more fervent now.

_Let him live. Please, let him live. Just let him live!_

She pushed aside low-hanging branches, the candle providing barely enough light for her to see her feet or the terrain in front of them. The wind shifted, a breeze becoming more of a gust, and the candle snuffed out altogether.

Rose tossed it aside and forged on into the undergrowth. In her desperation, her foot caught on a protruding root and she pitched forward, landing with full force on the hard ground. The pistol fell from her grasp and tumbled somewhere to her right.

“Oh, God,” she groaned, and a sob threatened to burst forth. Then she remembered the gunshot and the sound of Silas’s voice crying out, and she pulled herself up. On hands and knees she crawled, patting down the forest floor until she felt cold metal beneath her fingertips. She gripped the gun and cocked it as she rose to her feet.

“Where are you?” Rose muttered, as if Silas could somehow hear her. She looked around, the trees surrounding her nothing but hulking dark shapes, watching, listening, waiting.

Only now did she realize how foolish she’d been — rushing out into the unknown night with no light and no idea where she was going, or what she would do if there was trouble. It was not the reaction she would have had in the past. She used to be rational, thoughtful, determined to plan out each possible course of action before deciding on the best. But something was different now. Rose wanted to think it was because of what she’d lived through, but even as she told herself this, she knew it wasn’t true.

It was because of Silas.

He had been there whenever she needed him over the past three months. Even when he’d first arrived, pounding on the door, he’d been trying to save her. Help her. He had given up everything — suffering gunshots, losing someone she could tell he cared for — to stay here with her. And even though he’d told her it was all to repay Jay, Rose felt she owed him. She knew, as she blazed deeper into the dark trees, that he would have done the same for her.

Rose reached out, stepping forward until her palm hit the rough trunk of the tree in front of her. She kept her hand on the tree until she could plant her hand on the next one, only then letting go of the trunk behind her. She did this, trying to keep tethered to something, trying to know where she was going before she went there, as the darkness became thicker and more complete around her. She didn’t know how long she went on, from tree to tree, but it felt far too long. Whatever had happened after the gunshot — Rose tried to brush the thought from her mind that it might be too late.

“Silas!” Her voice, raw with desperation, echoed through the woods. Somewhere in the distance, an owl hooted. She didn’t know what else she’d expected to hear.

After a time, Rose thought she should change course, but it was too risky. If she kept heading forward in the same direction, at least she could turn around and go straight out of the forest if she had to. She could just —

 _No_. She wouldn’t leave him. She yelled out his name again, and just above the din of the forest, Rose heard the tiniest of sounds — like a muffled cry. Like a response.

She turned, veering off to her right where it sounded like the answer might have come from. Rose pushed through a line of pine trees, their needles scraping against her arms and face, and she emerged into a tiny clearing just a few feet wide, illuminated by white moonlight. Despite the warm breeze, her body went cold.

There were two figures sprawled across the forest floor — one she recognized as Silas, and the other belonged to a man she did not know. For a moment, Rose was stunned, unable to move or even breathe. She stared at Silas, willing herself to move. Then she saw his chest rise and fall as a feeble cough tore through him, and she sprang forward.

Rose fell to her knees beside him. “God,” she breathed, looking him over. Silas’s face was bloodied and swollen, one eye nearly forced shut. Although he was breathing, he drew only sharp, shallow breaths. Rose surveyed him and saw that his leg, the same one that was still giving him pain, was bloody too, his pant leg tattered. Silas’s good eye started to drift shut.

“No!” Rose gave him a shake and his eye snapped open. “Stay awake,” she cried, trying to force her voice to remain even. He couldn’t hear the fear in her voice — she wouldn’t let him. “What happened?” she asked. Silas’s lips twitched slightly, but he made no sound. She leaned forward and pushed up his pant leg to find a wide gash in his flesh, dark blood pulsing out on every heartbeat. Rose’s hands shook and her breathing grew faster. _Do something_.

She tore off the pant leg at the knee and wrapped it around the wound, pulling it tight and knotting it. She expected to hear Silas protest at this, or at least squirm or show some kind of reaction, but when she glanced up at him, she saw his eyes were closed again.

“Silas!” She shook his shoulder, and when he opened his good eye, she saw it was glazed over and rimming with tears. “Stay with me,” she muttered, unsure whether he could even hear her. “Can you stand?” she asked, louder this time. Silas’s head slowly wagged back and forth. _No_.

He couldn’t stay here. He would only keep bleeding, and the cold of the night would soon set in. She wouldn’t leave him.

Rose took a breath, steeling herself, and then she snaked her arm under his body and heaved until he was propped up against her. Another breath, and in a burst of strength she didn’t know she had, she hauled him up beside her, bringing them both to their feet. His full weight pressed against her, threatening to topple both of them, but Rose kept her footing. Sturdy.

She took one look over her shoulder at the body still lying on the ground before starting off in the direction she’d come, back through the pines. Back through the darkness, passing wide trunk after wide trunk that had been her only guide. Beside her, Silas’s breathing was labored and his body heavy, but she didn’t allow herself to think. She concentrated only on putting one foot in the front of the other until the forest fell away around them and they were back on the flat openness of the plain.

The dark outline of the cabin looked so small up ahead, and Rose wondered how they would ever reach it. With each step, it only seemed to move farther away. Rose looked down to see Silas’s blood on her shirt, and she knew she had to keep going. He would die if she didn’t.

She wouldn’t let anyone else die for her.

At long last, they reached the porch, and Silas leaned only on his good leg as Rose guided him up the steps. Inside, she lay him down on the bed, his entire weight collapsing upon it as if he were being laid to rest for good.

 _No_. Rose stopped herself. _Don’t think like that_.

She lit a new candle and surveyed his wounds closer in the light. Her hands began shaking again, so hard this time she had to set the candle down.

There was so much blood.

Somehow, she found her bearings enough to stand up and put a pot of water on the stove to boil. As it bubbled, she watched him from across the room.

He was so still.

She soaked a dish towel in the hot water and set to cleaning his wounds.

Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

Once she had wiped away all the blood and tied a fresh bandage around Silas's still-seeping leg, Rose could only kneel by his side and look on as his eyes danced beneath closed lids. For the first time since her father had died, she felt truly alone. 

Rose bowed her head. A tear pricked at the corner of her eye, so she squeezed them both shut.

 _God, please don’t let him die_.


	6. Chapter 6

**Silas**

All he saw were flashes. The sky above him — here then gone. Rose’s face, brow creased with worry, eyes wild with fear — then nothing. He felt something bearing him up and out of the forest, and to him, it felt like he was drifting several feet above the ground.

Then there were flashes of pain. Blinding heat in his leg, so bad that he wanted nothing more than to move away, but he could no longer control his body. Bursts of agony tore through his side. His head, too, was aching, and his left eye burned whenever he tried to open it.

Rose’s face again. Tearstained cheeks. Hands clasped.

Or perhaps it wasn’t Rose at all.

Silas was kneeling next to his mother, her long hair streaked with silver streaming down her back, hands gripped tightly together in prayer over his father. The man's skin was thin and sallow, and his eyes were closed. His mother’s muttered Gaelic was the only sound in the room. A smell that Silas would come to recognize as death hung heavy over them. Silas could not cry.

A whiff of salt air. Silas stood on a bluff, overlooking the funeral. He watched as the casket — just a thin wooden box, all the family could afford — was lowered into the muddy ground. His mother’s face was veiled in black, but he could still see her hands were clasped together in prayer. Silas did not pray.

He turned and strode from the burial, but his feet started to sink into the earth and he could not move. No matter how hard he pushed forward, he was stuck. When he tried to call out for help, he could not find his voice.

The salt smell was stronger now. Silas felt his surroundings heave back and forth, and he was thrown to the floor — wooden planks. There was the sound of rushing waves surrounding him, and the boat listed again, tossing Silas onto his other side. Pain jolted through this chest, but still he could not cry out. It was dark. Nearby, a child began to cry, and there was no one around to comfort it. Silas’s stomach roiled, but when he retched, nothing came up.

He looked up. The sky was clear and cornflower blue, the only cloud a dark thunderhead miles in the distance. A dead stag lay before him, and his hands were covered in its blood. He took a handful of raw meat and bit into it. This time when he retched, he emptied his stomach.

Hard rain was beating needles into the back of his neck. A crack of thunder erupted directly overhead, shaking his very bones. Silas tried to stand up, but there was the pressure of a boot in the center of his back, forcing him to the ground again.

Cold blue eyes. An unreadable smirk. A quiet voice. “What are you doing out here?”   _Surviving_. A chuckle. “Not doing such a great job of that, are you? Hmm?” Then a hand extended down to Silas. He took it; it was softer than he’d expected. “Come on, kid.”

He was bobbing up and down on horseback, trailing behind the gang. They seemed to speak a different language to each other, made up of guttural sounds he’d never heard before. Payne glanced back at him and winked. His stomach twisted.

The pistol in his hand was smoking. The body at his feet was bleeding — the body at his feet was dead. Payne clapped a hand on his shoulder, congratulatory, and he shrugged it off.

The one hundred dollars in his pocket felt heavy. He tossed it into the river.

Silas still could not cry.

His feet were heavy as he walked the countryside, his throat parched despite the water he guzzled from his canteen. Up ahead of him, he heard the sound of Payne’s voice, heard him snicker. Silas stopped in his tracks. The gang continued ahead of him, becoming dark shapes against the sunset until they disappeared entirely over the horizon.

The sky darkened. The sun rose. The sun fell. The sky was dark again. Silas saw no stars.

A fire popped, sending sparks to mingle with the night sky. A young man with a mop of dark hair pointed out a constellation — Jay. Silas glanced up, but all he saw was darkness. He rolled over, his back to the boy.

Silas held the knife steady as he scraped lather from Jay’s cheeks. “I know why you need my help.” Silas stayed the knife, and for a moment, he felt transparent. Jay could see into him, could see that the deepest parts of his heart were nothing but regret and mistakes. For a moment, he believed Jay knew who he really was — and he was comforted.

Then Jay was leaning up against the wall of the cabin, eyes closed, mouth agape, pale and cold. Once so full of life, now lifeless. Anger boiled up in Silas’s chest — anger at the world and at himself for letting it happen. A clean white shroud drifted down over Jay’s body.

Darkness.

Then, a light. Nothing more than a candle flame, flickering into existence, growing brighter and brighter until it illuminated the room. It was sparsely decorated with a table and chairs — the Ross homestead. He folded up the newspaper and set it on the table.

He wasn’t alone. Rose knelt in front of a cradle and lifted up an infant in her arms. The child let out a few short, sad cries. She rocked it as she sat down across from Silas. “Jay bird,” she cooed, “why so sad?”

Silas leaned over to look at the child. His little face was screwed up, ready to wail. Rose glanced up at Silas, her dark blue eyes meeting his just like they had the first time they’d met. But this time, he didn’t see fear in them.

He saw love.

Rose stood and came around the table, reaching out and laying the child in Silas’s open arms. He felt heavier than Silas expected, and warmer. The baby stared up at Silas, eyes wide, lips drawn shut, either too confused or too afraid to cry. Silas stretched out his finger, and the child grabbed it, a little hand latching onto him.

His arms were empty. Silas stood beneath the blistering sun, the golden wheat stretching out for miles beyond him. Beside him, Rose sliced a thick bunch of stalks, gathering them and placing them in a bag at her hip. She looked over at him, a smile wide on her face.

And then she laughed.

It was the most beautiful sound Silas had ever heard — musical and joyous and carefree. Her nose wrinkled a little, and she brushed her hair from her face as the laughter petered out.

Almost unbidden, Silas reached out, taking her hand in his. If she was surprised, Rose did not show it. He brought her hand to his lips, kissing her knuckles one by one. Her smile did not fade — in fact, it grew stronger.

Darkness.

“I love you.”

Silas opened his eyes to brightness. He gasped, but his chest tightened and he began to cough, spluttering for a breath. Beside him, there was a rustle, and he glanced over to see Rose sitting up in a chair next to the bed. She leaned forward, extending a hand as if to touch him and then thinking better of it, placing it back on her lap.

“Thank God,” she said, and then a tear cascaded down her cheek. She wiped it away. Silas tried to lift his hand, but his body was too heavy. There were a thousand things he wanted to say, but his mind could not form the words. He leaned his head back against the pillow, letting his eyes fall shut again, hearing those words in Rose’s soft voice again.

 _I love you_.


	7. Chapter 7

**Rose**

She set down another bowl of broth on the chair beside the bed. Silas stirred, as if he’d sensed her approach. He groaned as he craned his neck to look at the bowl.

“Are you still hungry?” she asked. He gave a grunt that she’d learned meant yes. Since he’d awoken, Silas had taken at least three bowls of broth and countless mugs of water, but Rose knew he still hadn’t regained much of his strength. He passed in and out of sleep — sleep that was so quiet and still, Rose often found herself staring at his chest until she was sure he was breathing.

She did not sleep herself — not for more than a few minutes. She sat vigil beside him, as if her presence alone could ward off death. She cleaned his wounds as best she could, and while the cuts on his face appeared to be healing day by day, the slice in his leg was still red and hot to the touch. Rose wondered whether he could even feel it.

After she’d brought him in, Rose had spent the first night tending to him, wiping away the blood, pressing a cool cloth to his forehead, bandaging and re-bandaging his leg every few hours. Rose noticed, beneath his slumber, that Silas’s breaths shuddered and rasped, and she had lifted the blanket and pulled up his shirt to see a mottled blue and gray bruise stretching across his ribs. She’d glanced up at his face — still asleep, although his eyes danced under their lids — and then reached out a hesitant hand. When she touched his side, he flinched, but his eyes did not open. Rose gently probed the spot, feeling for any breaks or protruding bones. She found nothing.

Thank God for that, at least.

She continued to check the dressing of his wounds regularly, boiling water and traversing the room over and over. Whenever she saw that he was breathing, she counted it as a victory. And when the sun rose after that first night, Rose wanted to believe the worst was over, but she didn’t allow herself that thought.

Occasionally, he came around. The moments Silas was awake were short, and Rose took them as opportunities for him to eat and drink. Once, he tried to speak, but it caused such a coughing fit that she shook her head and told him it could wait. She half expected him to try again, but instead, he collapsed back into slumber soon after.

Rose tried to keep the curiosity at bay, but it was there anyway, creeping into her mind as she stared into the solitary candle flame during the darkest parts of the night. What had happened? Who was the dead man in the forest?

Now, as Rose perched on the edge of the bed beside Silas, resting the bowl against his lips and tipping it until he was able to sip the broth, she felt the questions bubble up again, but she held her tongue.

Silas finished the whole bowl and leaned back against the pillow, eyes closed. One of his eyes was still swollen and bruised, and there were a few scabbing cuts across his jaw, but he looked better than he had a few days ago. Rose settled herself back into the chair and sighed. She thought he’d fallen asleep again, so when he broke the silence, voice just above a whisper, Rose started.

“I knew him.” Silas’s eyes were still closed, and his voice croaked from disuse.

Rose leaned closer. “What?”

And his eyes opened, meeting hers. The light in the room was low — the flickering candle sending shadows across the room. But even in the semi-dark, Rose was struck with the intensity of Silas’s gaze in contrast with the weakness of the rest of him. Her head suddenly felt lighter, her face warm. “The man…” Silas paused to draw a breath, and as he did, he grimaced. “…the man I killed. I knew him.”

Silas’s voice was growing weaker, so Rose leaned toward him again. She realized she was very close to him, her face mere inches from his, but she found she did not mind. And neither, it seemed, did he, for he did not try to move away.

When Rose said nothing, he continued. “I used to run across him when I was…” He paused, his eyes jumping away from hers, and Rose knew he hadn’t just lost his breath. He swallowed, still gazing down at the floor. “…when I was younger.”

“Who was he?” The question tumbled out before Rose could stop it.

Silas drew another breath, but it caught in his lungs and he began to cough. Rose put a hand on his shoulder, watching, helpless, as he was consumed with coughing. He gestured for her to come even closer, so she bent over the bed. “Help me,” Silas managed to get out, “roll over.”

Rose pulled on his shoulder, rolling him onto his injured side. He was able to suck in a few deep breaths, his body easing. It was only then that Rose realized her hand still lay on his shoulder. She gave it a soft squeeze and then retreated back to the chair. Her palm was tingling, so she folded her hands in her lap.

“He was coming for me,” Rose said. It wasn’t a question.

Silas met her gaze again, and something in his eyes looked like an apology.

“He was watching,” Silas said. “Don’t know for how long.”

The thought that someone had been just beyond her sight, watching and waiting to strike, set Rose’s skin crawling. A prickle at the back of her neck made her glance around, as if someone was creeping up behind her. All she saw was the simple cabin, the front door, the windows, now dark. She stood and locked the door, and when she returned to her chair, Silas had dropped off to sleep again.

She hadn’t even thanked him yet.

Rose watched him as he slept, examining the whispery shadows cast on his cheek by his eyelashes.

He had nearly died.

A second time.

For her.

What did that mean? What did it mean that a man she barely knew would put himself in danger for her sake? He had no reason to be here — that much was clear to Rose, had been from the very beginning.

Rose leaned forward, keeping her movements slow and hoping she would not disturb him. She came closer still, inching forward, until she brushed her lips against his forehead, trying to bestow some of the words she could not say.

_I don’t know why you did it — but thank you._

She pulled away, and as she looked at him, Rose was reminded of Kotori. Of Jay. She saw their faces as clear as she saw Silas’s now, and a shock of guilt jolted her in the pit of her stomach so hard she nearly gasped. They had died for her — because of her. The souls piling up on her conscience were growing in number, and Rose didn’t know whether she could take any more.

 _He can’t stay here_.

The thought materialized before Rose could fully comprehend it. Silas could not stay. She brought death with her wherever she went — not even traveling across the world could she outrun it. If Silas stayed, he would surely be next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk to me at [ask-learningthetrees.tumblr.com](http://www.ask-learningthetrees.tumblr.com)!


	8. Chapter 8

**Silas**

“I can feel you staring at me.”

Silas spoke without opening his eyes, but he could still picture the flustered blush that would be creeping up on Rose’s cheeks. He’d learned there were things he could say that would produce that reaction, and for some reason, he enjoyed it.

But when he opened his eyes, Rose was staring down at the book in her lap.

“Really?” The word left her lips in a murmur, like an afterthought.

Silas smirked. “Guess not.”

But now she looked up, setting aside the book and crossing the room to him. It was proper night now, the orphan children having been tucked in bed for several hours, and Silas was often surprised at how Rose managed to stay awake and keep occupied, even into the late hours of the night. Surprised — and somewhat amazed. 

Rose leaned over the bed to give him a once-over. Her eyes roved across his face, and Silas found himself hoping she would meet his eye, but she didn’t. Instead, she folded down the blanket and put a gentle hand on the bandage around his middle. The spot where she touched him felt warm, and not because of the wound.

“Does it hurt?” she asked, applying a slight amount of pressure. It was tender, but nothing compared to the agony of the first week or so. Silas gritted his teeth but shook his head. Rose raised an eyebrow, unconvinced.

“Not as bad,” Silas admitted. Rose pulled the quilt back up over him, brushing her hand along the hem as she did.

“Can I get you anything?” she said as she straightened up.

Silas shook his head again. This time, it seemed, Rose believed him, because she lit a candle beside the bed and then retreated to her place by the table again. It was strange to Silas how much he noticed the absence of her, even though she was only on the other side of the room. The cabin fell silent except for his breathing and the occasional rustle of paper as Rose turned a page. He watched her, expecting to see her shoulders slump with exhaustion or her head droop, but she just kept steadily turning pages.

“What’re you reading?”

This pulled Rose away from the book. She held her place with her finger and lifted the book so he could see the cover, dark red and faded by years of readings. “Maid Maleen,” she said, “from Grimm’s Fairy Tales.” The name was familiar to Silas — perhaps he’d heard one or two of the stories, but he’d grown up too quickly for fairy tales.

“What’s it about?”

Rose set the book down on her lap. “It’s about a young princess who is denied her love and banished to a tower for seven years. Then, through chance, she is reunited with him, but he doesn’t recognize her. She must lie to him — for both their sakes.”

Silas cleared his throat. “How does it end?”

Rose opened the book and flipped a few pages. “‘Then they kissed each other, and were happy all the days of their lives,’” she read. After a pause, she glanced back up at him, her gaze dejected. “It’s silly, isn’t it?” she asked. “Rejoicing, weddings, prosperous lives.” She paused, biting her lip. “Things don’t really happen that way.”

Seeing her spirit drop spurned Silas to say something. He sighed, the deep rush of air in his lungs sending a pang through his side. Rose was adamant that he had no broken ribs, but if they weren’t broken, then they were bruised to hell. “No, they don’t,” he said.

“Is it wrong to imagine they might?” Her words were so soft, Silas wasn’t sure whether they were meant for him. Even so, he answered before he realized what he was doing.

“Nothing wrong with that.”

Only half of Rose’s face was lit up by the candle on the table, and as she looked at him, eyes meeting his directly, Silas thought he saw a touch of sadness. Of regret. Of a grief for the past he understood only too well. But then it passed, and as Rose was so skilled at doing, the emotion was gone from her face, replaced by a steely neutrality.

“You can get some sleep, you know,” he said. She gave a tiny shake of her head. “You don’t need to worry about me.”

Rose swallowed hard and looked away. “Yes, I do.”

She felt responsible — that much was obvious. It was in the way she scurried to his side whenever he stirred, the way she always made sure he and the orphans were fed first, the way she sat up at all hours of the night, ready at his beck and call. Even if she’d never said it aloud, Silas knew. She felt she had done this to him. He wanted to speak up, to tell her the truth — but he couldn’t find it.

The silence between them that had once been comfortable was now heavy.

Rose turned a page, the conversation over, and Silas closed his eyes.

He must have slept, because when he opened them again, it was morning. Rose was nowhere to be seen, but when Silas was able to sit up, he saw a cup of water on the chair beside the bed. He strained to reach it, the exertion angering his sore ribs and leaving him gulping for air, but when the pain subsided, he managed to take a few sips. He was parched. Rose had known he would be.

He set down the cup and, despite the stab of pain in his side, gently slid his legs out of bed so they dangled over the edge. He would get up today. He’d been laid up for too long, and he could feel the itching in his limbs that told him he needed to do something.

But even just sitting up and putting his feet flat on the floor squeezed a groan from him. Through the pain, Silas had to chuckle. _If Payne saw me now_ , he thought. He had managed to emerge from the first quarter of his life unscathed, something Payne never let him forget. He’d darted bullets, dodged fistfights, survived through frigid winters where rations were scarce. And now, he could barely sit up in bed without having the wind knocked out of him.

Despite all this, he did not mind — and he couldn’t figure out why.

Silas took a deep breath, steeling himself for the onslaught and balling up his fists, and then he lurched forward, slamming his full weight onto his feet and starting to straighten up. The force of the movement drove a shock of pain to his core, and he crumpled, his legs going out from underneath him as he collapsed to the floor. All he could do was let out a gasp, the ache still radiating from his ribs.

_Great work, Silas_.

There was a scrape as the door opened, and he turned his head to see Rose hovering in the doorway. The instant her eyes dropped to him on the ground, she rushed forward to crouch beside him, her hand a whisper on his shoulder.

“What happened?” she asked, and before he could answer, she was asking another question. “Can you move?”

“Tried to,” Silas said through clenched teeth.

Then Rose’s hand was under his elbow. “Let’s get you back to bed.”

He resisted, pulling his arm from her grip. “I’ve been in bed long enough,” he said. “I need to get up.”

Rose sat back on her heels. Once, he had suggested that he bandage up his own wound, but she had refused, telling him it would be easier and safer for her to do it. Silas expected the same rebuttal now, but instead, she gave him a solemn nod.

“Will you at least let me help you?”

He grunted in assent. Rose put a supporting arm under his shoulder and held tightly across his back as he clung to her shoulders. They paused there for a second, and Silas felt his heart race.

“Ready?” she asked. He nodded. Together, they rose, Silas letting his weight press onto her when a twinge in his side threatened to knock him down again. After a few painstaking moments, they were both upright. Again, they paused. “How do you feel?” she asked.

“Not bad,” he said, and it wasn’t a lie. Straightening up let him fill his lungs, and he drew a deep, nearly painless breath for the first time in days. But it wasn’t enough. Emboldened by the feel of Rose’s arm still strong across his back, Silas bent his right knee and took a meager step forward. He would have wavered, but Rose’s hold kept him balanced.

His left leg should have followed, but between the gunshot and the stab wound, it was stiff and sore and wouldn’t cooperate. “Dammit.” Silas swore under his breath as he tested merely shifting his weight to the other leg. Pain jolted up from his calf to his hip.

“You don’t have to do this now,” Rose said softly. Silas pretended he didn’t hear her, and in a rush of movement, forced his left foot forward. He hissed as another jolt hit it. He felt Rose start to pull away, but he kept his hold on her, and she remained at his side.

Right foot forward. Easy. Left foot forward. Harder, painful. Right foot. Left foot. Never before had walking been such a task for Silas, but after a few paces, his body fell into a rhythm. He carried a considerable limp, avoiding the smart of each footfall as much as he could, but with Rose still walking alongside him, Silas managed to make up for his bad leg.

They were nearing the middle of the cabin, passing the table, approaching the far wall. Their footsteps were an uneven _clomp CLOMP_ on the wooden floor, and as the wall came within reach, Silas quickened his pace until he could throw out a hand and touch it.

It should have felt victorious, but he was nearly out of breath and his left leg was pounding. More than anything, it was disappointing.

Still braced against the wall, Silas glanced over at Rose. She lifted her head, met his eyes, and, as though the sentiment was bursting through her façade, she smiled. The sight made Silas’s heart stop. He’d never seen Rose smile — save for in his fever dream. Her eyes, usually so melancholy and thoughtful, were now bright and full of life. Full of joy.

It was the most beautiful thing Silas had ever seen.

In that moment, he knew with exact clarity why he had stayed, and it had nothing to do with Jay. Why he had put himself in harm’s way, why he wouldn’t let any danger befall her, why he didn’t even care that he’d been so badly hurt.

It was her.

Looking at her Rose’s smile now, Silas knew he would do anything to preserve it. Anything to keep her safe and smiling. The possibility of not being able to walk the same as before, of another shootout at the homestead — none of it daunted him.

As long as she was all right, none of it mattered.

Rose’s smile faded and she turned, steering the two of them back toward the center of the room. Silas, exhausted, let her. “Easy,” she warned, bracing him as she lowered him back down onto the bed. He sat back while she settled the quilt around him again.

Finally, he found the words he hadn’t been able to say before. “It’s not your fault.” Nothing. Rose continued busying herself with the blanket and did not look up at him. “It wasn’t you who sliced my leg open and beat me senseless. You don’t need to punish yourself.”

Then she glanced up, and the light and mirth he’d read on her face not moments ago was gone. He wondered what he'd done to make it disappear. “You don’t understand,” she said.

He leaned forward, desperate to get closer to her. He wanted to know what she was thinking, wanted to understand why she worked so hard to keep so much hidden. “Try me.”

But she only shook her head. “Get some rest.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Rose**

When she entered the cabin, her gaze went immediately to the bed, only to see that the blanket was turned down and it was empty. She sighed. That was happening more and more often. Now that Silas was well enough to walk — and now that he could do it without her help — it was nearly impossible to keep him in one place for very long, even if he did grow tired quickly.

There was the sound of a high-pitched giggle, and Rose approached the ajar door to the bedroom. She peeked her head inside to see Silas sitting on the floor, one blonde orphan on either side of him. Silas brandished a handkerchief, and when he sent it swooping through the air, billowing and sailing, the little girl laughed again. The sound bubbled up like a spring, and Rose couldn’t help but feel that something was right with the world. As long as children could still laugh, maybe this place wasn’t so bad. Maybe they had a chance after all.

She pulled the door shut and retreated away before any of them noticed her. There were things she needed to get done, and watching them wouldn’t do.

Thinking about Silas any more than she needed to wouldn’t do.

Rose tried not to get used to the idea of him being around, tried not to feel that same wash of comfort she had when he was in the same room, tried not to imagine her life with him in it. It wasn’t fair to him — he had to leave. There would be nothing but danger and pain for him if he stayed. And it didn’t matter whether she wanted him to or not.

She shook her head. _Stop thinking about him_ , she reminded herself, although that was difficult when another child’s laugh emanated through the door, and she knew it was because of him. Rose picked up the rifle that was propped by the door, checked the safety, and then journeyed outside.

For a moment, she surveyed the landscape. The clear morning would surely give way to a sweltering afternoon, as summer was descending on the valley. When she stood here, Rose felt as if she could see forever, beyond the plains and mountains of Colorado, over the ocean, back up the coast of Scotland. If she closed her eyes, the rustle of wind through the grass became the lap of waves on the shore, and she imagined herself rolling down bluffs and running through the dunes, childish and carefree.

But she was no longer carefree, and what she needed to do was make sure it was clear as far as she could see. Rose scanned across the horizon — a bird alighted on the fence in the distance, preened, and took off again. Other than a soft breeze sending the grass waving, nothing moved. Satisfied, Rose turned to head back inside.

But before she took a step, she saw Silas standing on the porch, an unlit cigar in his hand. Rose shaded her face with her hand to look up at him. “You're just starting to breathe again,” she said as he struck a match. “You’ll regret that.” He took a drag, held it in for a moment, and then his face screwed up, lips tight. Rose nodded as he let out a gasping cough, followed by a train of little hacks. “I told you.”

“That’s cruel.” He spoke around his coughs.

Rose took a step up onto the porch. “I have little sympathy for you when you brought it on yourself.”

Silas smirked at this, snubbing out the cigar and tossing it aside. “You’re right.”

Rose stepped up again, nearly level with him. “I often am.”

Now, Silas chuckled, but after a moment, the laughter on his face faded into serious contemplation. He was looking at her with such depth, she felt as if he was trying to read her, trying to understand whatever she wasn’t saying. He did that often lately, and it gave Rose pause. It wasn’t the strident, humored look she was used to. This was intentional, purposeful. She never knew what to do when he looked at her like that, so she usually looked away, busying herself with something else and trying to forget the feel of his eyes on her.

This time, though, she held his eye, lifting her chin to make them more even. His face was weathered, the bruises recently faded and the cuts only a few thin white lines. One could tell just from looking at him that he’d lived through a few tribulations, but his eyes were still just as lively as any Rose had ever seen. Whenever she met them, Rose was shocked by their clearness. What his body had lost — in strength, in resolve, in spirit — his eyes had gained.

But there was more to the story Silas’s face told. His whiskers had grown steadily during his convalescence until he was now sporting a range of ragged stubble nearer to a beard than anything. Rose noticed that he scratched at it when he was thinking, as he did now.

“Quite a growth you’ve got there,” she said, nodding to his chin.

Silas touched it again, rubbing a finger against his cheek. “It’s bothersome.”

“Bothersome?”

Silas nodded. “Suppose you’ve never felt food stick to your face.”

Rose snickered. “Can’t say I have.”

“Well, it’s unpleasant.” Silas laid his hand on one of the porch posts, and although Rose could tell he tried to make the movement as casual as possible, she knew he was growing unsteady on his feet.

She jerked her head towards the house. “Come on.” She took his arm at the elbow, and he let her lead him inside. She may have just imagined it, but it felt as though he leaned on her as they crossed into the house.

Rose guided Silas into a chair, and he leaned back, crossing his arms and watching her, now with the familiar skeptical expression. “What are you doing?” he asked, but Rose was already pouring water into a pot on the stove. She reached up onto the shelf to retrieve a leather bundle. When she remembered that her father had been the last one to touch it, Rose’s hands shuddered slightly as she set the kit out on the table. Unwrapping it, she revealed a set of silver-handled razors. Before she went back to the stove to retrieve the warm water, she threw a glance over her shoulder to see Silas’s reaction. She thought he’d be happy at the prospect of ridding himself of his growing beard, but instead, he looked down at the tools like one would look at the grave marker of an old friend — with nostalgic grief.

Rose grabbed a bar of soap and towel, and brought them with the now-warm water to the table. She settled herself across from Silas. He reached out toward the bowl. “Is it all right if I…?” she asked. He drew his hand back across the table and gave one slow nod.

Rose leaned forward, working up a lather with the soap. She brushed it across his jaw, holding his chin in place. She could feel his pulse under his skin, his throat bouncing as he swallowed. She felt her eyes wander up to his, and he was already looking at her — again, in that intense, unusual way. She forced herself to focus on her task.

With Silas’s face sufficiently lathered, Rose opened the razor. The blade was still sharp, as her father had maintained it well. Even when he went years without using it, he sharpened the razor blade every two weeks religiously. Rose remembered watching him tend to it, and once, he’d instructed her on how to get the edge sharp and shining. Rose’s hand threatened to shake again, so she gripped the handle tighter. She lay one hand on Silas’s shoulder to keep him steady, and then placed the edge of the blade against his skin. In one slow motion, she dragged the razor from the back of his jaw to the front. Wiping away the residual lather left a swath of fresh skin, a little red from the touch of the blade.

“You’re good at this,” Silas said, in his voice a touch of admiration.

“Thank you,” said Rose, feeling a little proud of herself.

“You done this before?”

She shook her head. “I’ve just watched.”

Rose continued, each pass slow and deliberate, taking care to shave against the grain. When she reached Silas’s upper lip, she pulled her chair even closer, placing one hand at the back of his neck to hold him still. Carefully, cautiously, she brushed the razor beneath his nose. As she wiped away the lather, Rose’s finger lingered on his lips for just a moment, soft and warm.

Her eyes jumped up to his again as if drawn there. The room around them felt warmer than it had a moment before, and Rose found herself wanting nothing more than to touch her lips to his. She wanted to know how they felt. She wanted to feel. She wanted him.

She leaned just an inch closer, so near to him that she could feel his breath on her face, and when she closed her eyes, she saw bloodstains. The blood that had seeped through the floorboards of the house and stained the clothes she’d been wearing the day her world was set aflame. She could still remember the feel of Jay’s blood between her fingers, the smell of it as she tried to scrub it from her hands. She was still covered in it — there was no escaping it.

Blood would always continue to follow her.

Rose opened her eyes and pulled away, setting the razor down on the table with a clatter and standing up. “I’m sorry.” The words left her mouth in a rush as she crossed the room and pushed through the door. Outside, she didn’t stop walking until she reached the half-finished fence that ran through the property. She sat down, drawing her legs up under her, and the height of the grass around her masked her from view, enveloping her in a whispery curtain.

It did no good to dwell on Silas, Rose knew. She knew it in her mind, the way she’d always known Jay was deeply in love with her and the way she’d known she’d never feel anything but friendly affection for him. But in her heart, she knew she wanted more than anything to be beside Silas — now, and for as long as she could imagine herself.

She loved him, she realized.

And because she loved him, she had to let him go.


	10. Chapter 10

**Silas**

Whatever had passed through Rose’s mind the day she shaved him, it had changed her. No longer did she look at him from across the room when she thought he wasn’t looking. When he jibed playfully with her, trying to elicit the blush he’d become fond of, she only gave a few words in response and then found something to do elsewhere. And whenever they were in close proximity, he noticed she made an effort to keep from touching him.

It was infuriating, but more than that, it was perplexing.

Silas remembered how Rose’s hand felt against his face, how the lightest touch of her skin to his had set his heart pounding and his head spinning. It was a foreign feeling, some unfamiliar mixture of fever and elation. He’d heard other men talk of being bewitched by a woman, but Silas had never been one to be bewitched. He’d give any one of his road companions a ribbing for talk like that — like the touch of one woman could change the entire world.

But now — as much as it would have killed him to admit it aloud — Silas was beginning to understand.

He tried to get her to talk to him. He would ask her what she was thinking about as she looked out the window in the morning. He would tell her some outrageous, often exaggerated tale as she tended to the fire, just to see her reaction. He would glance out the window at the clouds and ask her if she thought it would rain as they sat at the table in the evening. But everything he said was met with a shrug or a few short words, and Silas began to take it personally.

Then, one morning, he noticed the pile.

He was cleaning and oiling a pistol at the table when Rose entered, carrying a heavy woolen blanket that had been drying out on the clothesline. She shook it several times, folding it into place, the scent of fresh wool floating through the air. Rose rolled up the blanket and placed it in the corner, all without looking at him, and that’s when Silas realized there were several other things sitting in the corner as well. Small and unnoticeable enough, they were invisible at first — a canteen, a box of ammunition, a tall taper candle. And now the blanket. She was preparing someone for survival, for emergencies.

Silas knew without asking that it was for him.

When Rose left the room after adding the blanket to the stockpile, Silas stared at it for a long moment, frozen with uncertainty. She had never asked him to stay, but she hadn’t begged him to leave, either. He was beginning to think that, after having been at the homestead for going on six months, he was welcome to stay. He’d even been thinking about the future, as stupid and carelessly optimistic as that sounded.

Silas was never a man who planned. His life fell together due to a series of one hellish event after another. The deaths of his parents, the years he spent on his own in the wilderness, his initiation into and then expulsion from Payne’s gang. He’d never looked forward as a child expecting any of it to happen to him, and yet it had. Because he’d learned that things never worked out the way he wanted, he’d stopped pretending he had any control.

But recently, something had changed. When drawing water from the well, he noticed a crack in one of the bricks — not bad enough to warrant fixing immediately, but he knew it should be patched before the first snow, and then he realized he’d assumed he would be there come winter. Never before had he considered staying in one place for so long, and it didn’t take Silas much thought to understand why the future was on his mind now: Rose.

Memories of his fever dream were returning to him in bursts. Rose’s smile as she laughed beside him. The feeling of her hand in his as he kissed it. The sight of her cradling a child, an aura of peace settled around her. Silas needed only to look at her now to know he would give anything to remain by her side.

But it seemed Rose had other plans for him. Confronted now with the very real possibility that he would be expelled back into the dark, cold world alone sent goosebumps rising across Silas’s arms. He didn’t want this. Leaving was the farthest thing from his mind.

He set down the pistol — making sure the safety was on, as the children had a tendency to play with anything they could reach — and strode outside. He could just make out the figure of Rose in the distance, bending down by the small garden plot she’d been escaping to lately. Silas set off down the porch steps and out through the grass towards her.

His gait was much improved now, although he still thumped down hard on one foot and stepped lightly on the other. But there wasn’t nearly as much pain anymore — his leg only twinged early in the morning when he first awoke and late in the evenings after a day of walking on it. He was beginning to suspect the limp would be permanent. He didn’t love the idea, but it was a far cry from bleeding out alone in the woods somewhere.

Rose straightened up and turned to face him when she heard him approach. It may have just been the wind whipping against her face, but Silas thought her cheeks looked red, her eyes watery. He stopped a few feet from her, and she held herself stiffly, as though expecting a tempest.

“Are you sending me off?” he said. She cocked her head, like she didn’t understand. “The supplies, the blanket.” He gestured back toward the house. “You want me gone.”

Rose bit her lip, and Silas was annoyed with how beautiful he found that one little gesture. “I thought you’d want to go.”

Silas lowered his chin. “Is that what _you_ want?”

She was silent for a moment, eyes downcast, and when she looked back at him, there was no mistaking the tears glistening in her eyes. “It doesn’t matter what I want.”

And this made Silas want to shout out, to shake her, to make her see. Instead, he scoffed, and Rose’s eyebrows drew together at the sound. “For God’s sake, Rose, don’t you understand?” She fell still as she looked at him, and Silas knew he’d said the wrong thing. He took a step closer, still not close enough to touch her, but close enough that she could hear his next words, soft as they were. “I’d do anything you ask.”

Rose took a breath then, deep and long, and what she did next, Silas did not expect: She began to cry. The tears that had been welling in her eyes burst forth, running down her cheeks, and even as she wiped them away, they continued to grow stronger. Her breaths became shuddering gasps, and all Silas wanted to do was close the gap between them, take her in his arms, quell the tears, and do whatever it took to never see her cry again. But he stood still, immobilized, and could only watch helplessly as Rose wrapped her arms around herself.

He found his voice. “Rose?”

She shook her head, now avoiding his eye, and when she wiped away her tears again, she spoke, her words nearly lost in the wind. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

Silas watched her face, saw the strength in how she clenched her jaw and brought her eyes resolute to his, despite the tearstains still left on her cheeks. He took another step closer to her without fully realizing it — all he knew was he had to be nearer. “Why?”

Her next words were barely more than a whisper, and had Silas not been so close with his eyes trained on her face, catching the movement of her lips, he may have missed them entirely. “Because it’s not fair to you.”

“Fair?” Again, he scoffed. “I gave up on fair a long time ago.”

“You nearly died,” Rose said, the words tumbling out in a hurry, “because of me. And after everything that happened, after Jay, I couldn’t go through that again. I could never forgive myself if something else happened to you, because —” She cut the flow of words short, practically clamping her lips shut.

Silas stepped closer still, looking down towards her, willing her to speak again. But she shook her head, all the while her eyes not leaving his. She was waiting for him to say something, to tell her she was right and that he would leave her alone in this godforsaken wilderness — he could see it in the way her eyes had dropped to sadness. She was watching, waiting for him to speak. She was waiting.

Silas had journeyed alone across oceans and wide wastelands, but the most difficult expanse to traverse was the short distance it took for his hands to land on Rose’s hips. Before he could question himself, stop himself, tear himself away for good, Silas craned his neck down and closed the emptiness between them until he could gently touch his lips to hers. She was firm and soft and comfortable and perfect, but she was too still, and after a moment, Silas pulled away, scrutinizing her face for any sign of her thoughts. Had he overstepped? Was she taken aback by his advance? Had he made a mistake? Silas’s face and neck grew hot as he considered the possibilities —

And all at once, Rose’s lips were upon his again. The force with which she threw her arms around him sent him reeling back a step until he could steady them both and grip her tighter around the waist. She pulled herself closer to him, her arms around his neck, until their chests were pressed against each other's. Rose parted her lips, deepening the kiss and sinking into him. They fit together, and Silas could have held her like this forever.

But when she pulled away for a breath, Rose stepped out of his embrace, glancing up at him from under her eyelashes. Seeing her like this, so close to him, Silas was struck by just how lovely every part of her was — the flush of her cheeks, the flecks of hazel in her eyes, her lips plump and pink where his had been.

“What if you get hurt again?" she asked, her voice low as if to keep it from happening.

"I don’t care.”

“But I do."

“Well —” Silas laced his fingers together where they rested on the small of her back, drawing her closer again. "What if I promise you I won't let anything happen to me?"

"How can you promise something like that?"

Any mirth dropped from his voice, and he looked at her with his heart laid bare. "Because I don't want to see you hurt again." Silas lifted an eyebrow. "Do you trust me?"

She let out a breath. "Of course."

Silas could see she still wasn't convinced. He leaned forward and kissed her again, softly, slowly, deeply.

He pulled away. “Can I stay?” he whispered.

She bit her lip again. _Damn._ “Yes.”

Her warm breath tickled his cheek, and he found himself putting into words what he’d known as truth for a while now. “I love you.”

And then she smiled, and his world was forever changed. “I love you, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading -- stay tuned next week for an epilogue!


	11. Epilogue

**Rose**

There were good days and bad days.

On good days, Rose could live in the present, enjoying the feel of the autumn breeze on her face, taking in the woody smell of the fire, losing herself in the work of preparing the homestead for winter. Sometimes, she even looked to the future, imagining the property sprawling into a farm, with fields of crops to tend and animals to raise. And every once in a while, when she glanced at Silas across the room or felt his hand brush ever so lightly against hers, Rose allowed herself to feel fully, infinitely happy.

But just as often were the bad days — the days that brought back everything that had happened. She would awaken in tears from a dream where her father had still been alive. A word or phrase that Jay was prone to saying would suddenly appear in her mind, and it was as if she was watching him die all over again. On days like these, it took all Rose had in her to drag herself out of bed and go about her daily chores. Her body was numb while her mind raced through memories, followed by sadness, followed by blame.

Being near Silas did little to comfort Rose on days like this. Instead, she was struck with a knife of guilt that only sank deeper when she saw how her own sadness affected him. Doubts crept in again, plaguing her — telling her it was her fault, her fault, always her fault.

One afternoon, the doubt and grief and pain so overtook her that, hands shaking, Rose hid herself away behind the house. She crouched, back pressed against the wooden shingles, and took a shaking breath that erupted into sobs. Each time she tried to draw a breath, she only cried harder. She cried for her father and Kotori and Jay — and Silas, who had given up everything for her.

The tears did not stop for several minutes, and Rose clenched her fists against her thighs, willing herself to stop. But her mind had other intentions, and just when she thought she’d gained control, another thought wracked her. _It was all her fault._ And she could not hold back the sobs.

Through her weeping, Rose looked up to see that Silas had found her. She thought he would speak, say something to try to reassure her, but instead, he just sat down beside her. He was silent and did not touch her, and Rose was glad of it.

There were a few more moments where the only sounds were her shuddering breaths and gasping cries, and then, just as quickly as they’d come, they stopped. Rose could only suck in long, deep breaths, relishing for a moment the stillness in her heart.

“What was it?” Silas’s voice was low, a comfortable sound.

Rose shrugged. It was impossible to pinpoint one moment — rather, it was a swirling sea of memories and fears and regrets threatening to drown her.

“I’m sorry,” she said after a long moment. “You don’t want any of this.”

She could hear the challenge in his voice when he spoke. “Don’t I?” Again, she shrugged. Silas scooted just a little closer. “Rose, I never do anything I don’t want to do.” When she said nothing, he leaned closer still, so he could hear him whisper, “I want to be here with you.”

Rose turned to look at him, then, and his eyes were so earnest, she nearly cried again, this time with relief. “I have a hard time believing it sometimes,” she said.

He took her chin in his hand, his touch gentle. “Then I guess I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to convince you.”

When he kissed her, she tasted her tears on his lips.

The next day was a good day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, thank you, thank you for reading! It was so interesting (and a little challenging, if I'm completely honest) for me to tell a slightly different story for Rose & Silas, and I'm glad so many of you enjoyed it. As always, I'm over at [ask-learningthetrees.tumblr.com](http://www.ask-learningthetrees.tumblr.com) if you want to talk about Slow West, request fics, etc.!  
> Let's drift.


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